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26-08-2013

ARA News

Following the opening of the border crossing of Semalka, a huge number of Syrian Kurds have fled into the Kurdistan Region, northern Iraq.

The last visit of the President of the Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani, to the refugee camp in Erbil, was an important step in supporting and backing the Syrian refugees, according to the refugees themselves.

ARA News conveys the developments about the provided humanitarian aid and the efforts to support the refugees and their needs.

Barzani’s Statement

A woman refugee, who resorted to the Kurdistan Region with her family from Jawadiya town (Chal Agha in Kurdish), when fighting reached her own town north-east of Syria, said that the words of Massoud Barzani, who announced that the assistance of the Syrian refugees is a humanitarian and national duty, “which he would not hesitate to afford, removed the sufferings” which she underwent in her “horrible” flee towards Kurdistan Region, and thanked the hospitality of the Kurdish people in the Iraqi Kurdistan.

Influx of Support did not Stop into Erbil’s Camp

Mohammad, a young man, who has been working in Erbil for a year , was surprised while witnessing the remarkable support of Erbil’s residents offered to the refugees.

“The campaign of Zagros tv contributed effectively to urging the people of the Kurdistan Region to donate for the Syrian refugees,” Mohammad told ARA News.

Kurdish brotherhood

One of the residents of Erbil, who contributed in providing the displaced Kurdish people with different supplies, said that it was not a mere initiative, “it was rather a duty towards the Kurdish brothers of Western Kurdistan (Syria’s Kurdish region)”.

Emphasizing the Kurdish brotherhood, he urged the Kurdish people of Iraqi Kurdistan to help their people of Western Kurdistan. He went on saying that they will not forgive themselves if they did not help the Syrian Kurds in such circumstances.

Kurdish Peshmarga, who were helping the refugees, expressed their happiness at providing Syrian Kurdish with supplies and humanitarian aids.

One of the Peshmerga’s members said that they were ordered by the Minister of Peshmarga and the Chief of Staff to help the refugees by all means and to provide them with all the needed aid.

“We received the Minister’s orders very happily because that would be an opportunity to help our brothers from Rojava (Western Kurdistan),” he said.

The Peshmerga member, who preferred to stay anonymous, added that they would be ready for fighting side by side with their Kurdish brothers in Syria against the Islamist groups and other enemies.

Refugees’ Issue Should Be Solved

A member of the Syrian Kurdish Journalists Union, based currently in Erbil, talked to ARA News about the influx of Kurdish refugees and the possible ways to support them, describing the escalating violence in the Kurdsih areas in Syria as “horrible and complicated”, and stressed that the Kurdish leadership in the Region bears its responsibilities towards these refugees.

“However, there should be a plan to determine the mechanism of finding a solution out of this increasing crisis,” he said.

According to recent statistics of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), number of the registered Syrian refugees in the Kurdistan Region has reached 35,000 since Thursday, August 15. The total number of refugees in the Region is estimated around 200,000.

He also stressed on urging the Kurdish community in Diaspora to try with the governments to bear their responsibilities towards the refugees by providing them with denotations and humanitarian aid.

“The international community is demanded to provide the displaced Syrian Kurds with safe havens inside Syria,” he said, reaffirming that if the situation continued this way, there would be a separation of Kurds from their own areas, “not only from Syria’s Arab regions as the Syrian opposition tries promote”.